Delay to boundary review for Burgess Hill opposed

An emergency meeting will be held on Thursday (March 31) in response to the district council’s decision to postpone the review until 2025.

The review – known as a Community Governance Review (CGR) – became necessary after recommendations in a recent local government boundary review left a few ‘anomalies’ in a couple of district and parish wards.

A report to a district council scrutiny committee meeting last week said that, without a CGR, electoral arrangements in May 2023 would be

‘misaligned’.

Voters electing district councillors for Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill would also be electing parish councillors for Ansty & Staplefield.

And those electing district councillors for Lindfield would at the same time elect town councillors for Haywards Heath.

The report said this was ‘a situation that can be confusing and disagreeable to electors’.

Officers recommended that the Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath reviews be given the go-ahead, along with one for East Grinstead Town Council.

This would allow the council to consult with the public to find out what they would like to see happen when it came to the parish boundaries.

But most of committee chose to continue with the latter but postpone the first two until 2025.

Pete Bradbury (Con, Cuckfield) suggested the postponement because part of the community – namely the new Northern Arc East and Northern Arc West wards – did not yet exist.

He added: “My proposal to delay until 2025 will give time for some community to start there and therefore then there will be some people to consult.”

The boundary reviews were held in the first place to make sure each councillor represented roughly the same number of electors.

With so many new homes in the pipeline over the coming years, Rod Clarke (Con, Haywards Heath – Franklands) said: “My concern is that, in five years’ time, we’ll be re-doing it and moving them back because both wards will have developments either north or south of them over the next five years.”

Postponing the review was not an option supported by Robert Eggleston (Lib Dem, Burgess Hill – Meeds), leader of Burgess Hill Town Council.

He warned that any delays in developments such as the Northern Arc might see the district and parish councils stuck in a situation ‘where no decision is made’.

Alexander Sparasci (Lib Dem, Hassocks) agreed, saying the council was in danger of ‘kicking the can down the road’.

Pointing out that new homes were always being built, he predicted that the same arguments for postponement would be made in 2025.

The committee agreed by eight votes to four to postpone the Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath reviews.

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Eggleston said Burgess Hill Town Council needed ‘a huge community effort’ – at least 2,000 names on a petition – to start a review.

The aim will be to ensure the Northern Arc forms part of Burgess Hill by May 2023.

He added: “This a major exercise but so vitally important for the development of the town and the policies we want to deliver over the next 10 years.

“I am asking residents to come forward and help with this vital campaign by taking the petition into their streets and getting friends and neighbours in Burgess Hill to sign.

“We have about two weeks to get the names so need as much help as possible.”

Meanwhile Peter Chapman, independent district councillor for Burgess Hill - Victoria, described being ‘blindsided’ by the Conservatives’ decision to delay the boundary review for the Northern Arc.

He said: “If the Northern Arc was equidistant between the centre of Ansty and Burgess Hill, then you could see there would be an argument for whose control it should fall under, but there’s not one. The development is being interwoven with Burgess Hill along Maple Drive and Sussex Way. The centre of Ansty is 3 miles away.”

But there was supported for the delay from Lindfield Rural Parish Council.

The boundary changes would see The Copse, The Hollow, Kiln Lane, Knoll Place, The Platt, The Rise, Gravelye Close and some of Westlands Road moved to within the Haywards Heath Town Council boundary. 

Parish chair Trevor Webster said many residents had objected to the move ‘making it clear that they wanted to remain within the rural area and not be part of Haywards Heath Town Council’.

Calling the postponement ‘a common-sense decision’, he said it recognised ‘that local identity is very important to residents’.

Mr Webster added that the district council’s decision was ‘a recognition of the strength of feeling of the residents affected’.

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